


I Can Only Look at You

by NaiyaKokoro



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 19:11:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2036715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaiyaKokoro/pseuds/NaiyaKokoro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco messed up one too many times in the past, and now Hermione has moved on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can Only Look at You

**Author's Note:**

> This was created for the dramione.org Reverse Challege and I am just now getting around to posting it here.
> 
> The Ǥ symbol is a character I randomly picked to represent Galleons. According to JKR, 1 Galleon is approximately five pounds, so Hermione's ring is worth GB£62,500 or approximately $103,000 in USD.

He drains the last of his Ogden's and signals the bartender for another. The tuxedoed Elf shakes his head disapprovingly, but obliges. He takes the drink, tosses the Elf another Galleon, and resumes his position leaning against the counter top and watching _her_. She is being led around the dance floor by one of the elder Weasley brothers while her date, the youngest one, stuffs his face at the dessert table.   
  
_Disgusting,_ he thinks.  
  
He decides that he will never understand what she sees in the Weasel. The way she looks tonight, she could go home with any man she wants to. Her black gown is form-fitting to her knees, where it then flares out and sweeps the floor with a small train. Her hair has been straightened and pulled back from her face with large barrel curls hanging down her back from a low ponytail. Her makeup looks like she's not wearing any at all, and she is wearing very simple jewelry. Where every other woman in the room, Ginny Potter included, is dripping with jewels from head to toe, Hermione Granger is wearing merely a tennis bracelet and modest teardrop earrings.  
  
And her engagement ring, of course.  
  
It’s a monstrosity of a thing with a cushion cut diamond in the center that swallows her entire finger whole, haloed by several smaller diamonds, with even more diamonds running the entire circumference of the band. By this point in their engagement Weasley had already bragged about its Ǥ12,500 price tag to every Wizard paper as well as anyone the couple ran into together, in case the person in question didn’t read the Prophet, the Quibbler, or Witch Weekly.   
  
Draco, who used to date a writer for Witch Weekly, remarked to her once that the ring bears an awfully uncanny resemblance to the ring that Lavender Brown had once told anyone who’d listen was “simply perfect for her” during a time when she’d been absolutely sure that her then-boyfriend Ronald Weasley was going to propose to her “any day now.” The story had run on the cover of the very next issue and, eight months later, continues to be a source of embarrassment for Granger, which is exactly what Draco wants. Her oaf of a fiancé doesn't have enough sense to care one way of the other, continuing to insist that Hermione loves her ring.   
  
It doesn’t surprise Draco that Weasley would assume that both women would have the same taste in engagement rings. Hell, the idiot barely knows anything else about his fiancée. Not that she prefers dogs to cats, not that her favorite Muggle board game is Clue, and not that her favorite color is blue, the color of her birthstone and the stone that had once adorned her hand as the main feature of her other engagement ring.  
  
He gets another drink from the Elf behind the bar, who again openly expresses his displeasure at Draco’s apparently desire to get completely sloshed at this party. Draco doesn’t care. He knows that he’s tipping far too well for the Elf to cut him off. All that he gets is a stern “I hope you don’t plan to Apparate home tonight, sir.”  
  
He waves the Elf off as his eyes search Granger out in the crowd again. He is having trouble locating her because she’s moved from her previous spot on the dance floor and his vision is doubling as he nurses his fourth drink. Or is it his fifth? He can’t remember.  
  
He wonders where the engagement ring is now. He knows that she still has it. She isn't the type of person to have sold it or given it away and when she tried to return it to Draco, he refused. He wanted her to keep it as a reminder of what she was doing, how she was hurting him.   
  
Not that hadn't deserved the hurt, of course. Years later, he now realizes that Granger was well within her rights to never want to see him again. Finishing off yet another drink, he motions to the Elf that he's done and finds Granger again, who's now reunited with her fiancé and is prying a piece of dessert out of his hands. He scoffs, not believing that this is the man she chose to run to after leaving him.  
  
 _“Take it back,” she demands.  
  
He folds his arms and glares at her. "No. And if I meant anything to you at all, you wouldn't be breaking off our engagement right now."  
  
She gapes at him. "If you meant anything to me? If I meant anything to you, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place! This is your fault!"  
  
He sighs and reaches across the desk he's seated at to pour himself a drink.   
  
"You really shouldn't drink so much, Draco."  
  
"And you really shouldn't want to end things between us, yet here we are! Cheers!" He raises his glass in her direction and downs the drink in one go.  
  
“You know why it’s over.”  
  
“Actually,” he says, “I don’t. I was under the impression that you’d accepted my apology and we were good again.”  
  
She shakes her head. “I said that I’d accept your apology if you’d give me time to think things over. I’ve thought it over. I can’t marry you after what you did, Draco.”  
  
“Dammit, Granger!” He throws his glass which hits the ground an inch or two shy of her feet. She yelps and jumps back.  
  
“What the fuck, Draco! You almost hit me!”  
  
“And you’re being stupid right now. You can’t possibly expect me to believe that it took you six months to decide whether a kiss is worth breaking our engagement.”_  
  
He chuckles to himself, thinking what an idiot he’d been for thinking she’d fall for his “it was just a kiss” line. In reality, Draco had gone to visit Blaise’s family in France shortly after having announced his engagement to Hermione. The two men had gone out clubbing to celebrate. As they rounded out their night at _La Lune Bleue,_ one lovely dancer by the name of Chenelle had invited Draco to a back room for a complimentary private dance to congratulate him on his engagement. A dance turned into a kiss, which turned into a different kind of kiss that involved a pants-less Draco and a kneeling stripper. Draco returned to England the next week, having forgotten all about it until Chenelle sent him an owl describing everything they'd done and wishing to see him again. As Draco's luck would have it, Hermione found the letter before he did. Six months later, they were done for good.  
  
Four years have passed since the night they broke up and Draco has not spoken to Hermione since. All of her invitations to get lunch have been ignored or rebuffed. His invitation to the Granger-Weasley wedding was returned to her, having been shredded first.  
  
Sometimes he wishes that he had taken her up on her offer of friendship but those thoughts disappear quickly the next time he sees her current fiancé. He misses her, but his pride will not let him reconcile with her. He wants to go up to her now and tell her how beautiful she looks in her black gown, but he knows that it would only lead to a fight with Weasley.  
  
And now, he can only look at her and remember the days when she was his.


End file.
